When She was Searching Relationship
Kamala Sarup
Why does the mind turn sentimental while I am walking? The word failure is such a gulf of life from where I constantly try to escape to an endless journey.
I began the journey maybe, in order to keep my days safe from death, or perhaps for a possible honor after death, where I broke myself up and now, am crying all alone. A human being has a short existence and I am not an exception.
Why couldn't I encompass myself in words?
Perhaps to go on being shattered constantly is to escape from life and
to be unable to shape the circumstances according to the needs of the
time is not to succeed in keeping life in equilibrium. I know that the
ideal I have envisaged for my life will pull me down heavily each day with my steps. And again, seeing my own life, I would be as sentimental as I am now.
My friend is chronically sick. She is incapable of coping with a
situation with enormous difficulties that emerge due to limited
financial income.
I know that her father, like in the past years, will not send any letter, not offer any communication - she does not know, is he dead or alive. My friend became chronically ill, crying all the time with the thought of her father's harsh treatment.
I too get completely exhausted trying to console my friend and cry a
lot. This crying has no end. There is no solution except to get
emotionally upset and drop tears incessantly. Her father left her to join the foreign army when she was just a lass of six years. She faintly tries to remember him, but a dim memory of a shattered girl and her father has no value.
Her Mother goes on relating to me how she met her husband for the first time at the market, "My daughter, I was poor. I used to gather
firewood and carried to the town to sell. In the meantime, my husband
had come from the army on leave. He was quite handsome to look at. We fell instantly in love with each other. I left the village and my dear
friends, the forest, slopes and cliffs, to come to Kathmandu. He went
back to his army but returned to me every year during the festival. He brought many things for me. I was happy, but, my daughter, I heard sometime later that he married another woman."
Her mother couldn't control herself further and cried bitterly. I know
it fully well that after this, her father didn't send any money to them
nor did he visit them at any festival then on. Her mother started a small tea stall and they made their living somehow. The tea stall was their necessity in the process of living and they have spent years on it.
"My daughter, you should now get married. A handsome young man has
come from the army." When her mother told her this during our meal time I was speechless, and later asked, "Which one from the army are you talking about?"
"The same one who comes to drink tea everyday," her mother laughed.
My friend replied in a not too certain tone, "Mother, when I go away after getting married, you will be left all alone. I do not want to leave you all by yourself, perhaps I am unable to leave you that way."
Her mother became serious and said, "maybe after your marriage I will also find happiness. It is said that he has a good income in the army. He is quite an appropriate and handsome husband for you!"
I just smiled for her sake. I feel like laughing at words like army,
earning, and appropriate.
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